On March 17, 2025, Epic Games announced that professional gamer and streamer Cody Conrod, better known by his online alias Clix, would receive an Icon Series Skin, allowing players to compete as him. His Icon Series went live on March 22, and it came with unique cosmetics (which will rotate out of the shop on April 1) and two emotes.
The process of creating the skins, however, started 15 months ago with a phone call from Epic Games.
"They actually called me on Zoom," said Conrod in an interview with Complex. "It was completely unexpected; my manager didn't even know I was getting a skin. We thought it was a normal Epic Games call. But the next thing you know, I got told that I'm having my own icon in the game."
"And [in that moment], every single thing in my life felt like it was meant to be," continued Conrod. “You know what I'm saying? Like, every single thing that I'm doing, every single day on stream, competing, etcetera? This was the goal. This is what we really wanted at the end of it. I was so happy. And now that it's here, and I see a million collectors running around wearing myself, it's surreal."
The developers gave Conrod creative input on his Icon Series, which resulted in two different skins. The first is a fancy outfit, to signify his expanding empire outside of Fortnite, which includes an esports organization, a clothing brand, and a UEFN / Fortnite Creative studio. The second is a casual outfit, consisting of a black T-shirt and pajama pants, which, ironically, feels like a flex. Here’s a guy who makes more bank in his pajamas than many financial executives do in a $3,000 suit.
In addition to the two Clix skins, there's a "Sparx" reskin of Sparkplug, Clix's main avatar in-game. Dressed in a form-fitting tie-and-vest combo, Sparx is the first instance of a Fortnite Icon designing a skin other than his own, and of the three skins, Sparx has gotten the most positive online response.
"Competitive players specifically want to wear girl skins because they're smaller," said Conrod. "The hit box is better to an extent. So we took Sparkplug, a skin I've used ever since I was 13, and created Sparx, which is sort of a Sparkplug version of myself."
That Epic Games selected Conrod for its Icon Series is significant for several reasons. The first is that Conrod is one of the only tournament-viable professionals who has streamed himself this consistently over a period of years. There are algorithm-obsessed influencers with large audiences but suboptimal skills and there are professional players who would rather work on their metagame and their APM rather than on their audience engagement. It’s rare to find someone who does both well and does so intentionally.
The second is that it signifies a generational shift. Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who helped popularize Fortnite when he began streaming it in late 2017, is currently 33. Meanwhile, Conrod is 20 years old; he represents a younger generation of kids who grew up watching Ninja, and he’s presently the biggest Fortnite streamer in North America with an audience of 22 million followers across social media.
Nothing brought this age disparity into better focus than this clip from two years ago–Blevins said, "No cap" during a game, and Conrod responded by laughing at him.
Blevins admits the incident pissed him off, and he has since conceded that he'd probably handle it differently, were it to happen again.
Conrod has also been rethinking his image and the way he interacts online. A prolific shit-talker for many years, Conrod resonated with his young audience because he was one of them. But he's also done some growing up after a couple of high-profile incidents, including one where he called Fortnite creative director Donald Mustard a "fucking balding fuck" on Twitter on 2021, and another one where he broke the rules with a stream sniper in 2023.
"Starting when I was 13 years old, I kind of just clicked the button every day and said what I wanted to say, and even messed around and said some stupid stuff," admitted Conrod. "And now at 20 years old, I'm clicking this live button, and you really never know who's watching. You could have the next biggest brand deal watching that specific time. So I'm still myself, but I'm just a more mature version. I grew up with my chat and grew up with my community."
We all have our off days, and we've likely all said stupid things as teenagers. But fortunately, most of us don't have a digital paper trail to document our embarrassments. Conrod also came of age during the COVID-era, when face-to-face interaction and socialization were at an all-time low, negatively impacting an entire generation of teenagers.
One gets the impression, while talking to Conrod, that he has taken deliberate measures to polish his image, more so than many people his age. He is composed and talks with a low, even voice. He is diplomatic. He pivots to his most reliable talking points when necessary, telling young people to manifest and follow their dreams. In the 30 minutes I interviewed him, I never got the impression that I tripped him up or caught him off guard; he was prepared and anticipatory, particularly when discussing the difference between his off-camera and on-camera personas.
"When I'm streaming myself, it's always me, no matter what," said Conrod. "There's no character that I'm playing. The second I click the stream button, there are 10,000 people that spawn. And right when you see that number go up to 10,000 people, you have this blood flow. It's like adrenaline. You're ten times more energetic than you are when you're not streaming. So it's the same 'me.' It's just a ten times more energetic version of me."
Conrod became a competitive Fortnite player at the age of 14, when he qualified for the Fortnite World Cup after Epic Games lowered the age limit for competitors. It was around this time that he dropped out of school. He tried homeschooling for a couple of years, but eventually stopped that as well in order to focus on streaming full time.
"I dropped out in eighth grade, never went to high school," said Conrod. "I don't know if I'd be able to go to college, but besides, there's other ways to learn, you know? When I have time to read something that I'm super interested about, it's definitely going to benefit me. Business-wise, money-wise, taxes-wise – these are stuff that I actually have to learn by myself."
He has the support of his family, particularly his father, who loaned him the money to get his first gaming PC and currently helps him manage his finances. He's still working on his competitive game–more so the psychological aspects of Fortnite rather than the mechanics of it. He's learned to be more patient and strategic –qualities that come from maturing, and will be essential as he continues to get older. Typically, esport athletes don't have a long shelf life, hitting their prime in their late teens and early 20's. Thankfully, Conrod has never dealt with the sort of repetitive hand injuries that afflicts many of his peers.
Conrod has dealt with a level of fame and notoriety that few people can relate to. Approximately two years ago, around the time that he moved to Dallas to be closer to a low-latency central server, Conrod began hiring people to help him organize his life.
"I was getting so stressed," said Conroy. "I was getting so overwhelmed, and I needed to divide work to this dude, divide work to this person, and just make sure that I could focus on the main task, and that's entertaining the stream and competing.”
"It's difficult [to surrender control], because you don't think anybody else could do it better than you. It might turn out a little bit less than what you would have done with it, but it's still going to come out and it's still going to make people happy, and that's kind of the risk you have to take."
Fame is not all Lamborghinis and multi-million-dollar pads either. Fame also brings trolls, stalkers, and IRL mayhem. Conrod and his family have been swatted numerous times, most recently around two months ago. It's one of the reasons why, aside from his father, Conrod doesn't discuss his family on stream.
"The first time it happened, I was 14, and I remember playing Fortnite Champion Series," said Conrod. "I looked at the cameras to my right and saw cops in the bushes with their flashlights on, surrounding my house. That was the only time where I cried. I called my dad, he raced home and tried to explain to the cops that it was a false call. But ever since that time, all 29 times after, it's been, 'It's what it is.' Let them go through the house, explore, and then leave, you know? It's not really something that I'm gonna get mad over or sad over."
"It's just annoying, you know? It's just annoying."
Getting used to this intrusion, on any sort of level, demands a level of detachment and compartmentalization that defies his age. Like many people in their 20s, Conrod is negotiating this liminal space between child and adult, between private and public, between freedom and safety, between saying what's on his mind versus doing what's best for business. It seems like he has a good team that's eyeballing the details, making sure he doesn't veer off track.
Is the specific path that Conrod took to fame viable anymore? Establishment and legitimacy limit the "correct" avenues that one can take to success. It's like any tech trend, from the dot-com bubble to the early adoption of Bitcoin. If you're just hearing about it now? You're already too late.
"You can't expect to stream eight hours a day and blow up," said Conrod. "You need to put time in. You need to divide your time into posting clips on TikTok, posting clips on Instagram, and clip farming to make one viral TikTok go to a million. And then you're promoting it, you're Twitching it. So the next thing you know, you have a hundred viewers. And that's how it kind of starts. But, it's difficult now. Back in 2020, you could blow up so easily. But now, you either need to be put on really hard by another streamer who's big, or you need to have that one lucky TikTok viral clip that puts you on the map."
Conrod is lucky, no doubt, but he also has the elusive "it" factor. Elite Fortnite skills are not enough, in isolation, to attain his level of success. I'm a New York City public high school teacher, and over the years, many of my students have told me they aspire to be streamers and follow in his footsteps. I asked Conrod what advice he would give them.
"You can't have social anxiety," said Conrod. "That's number one. I have a camera in front of my face that peaks at over 200,000 people watching. That doesn't faze me, and regardless if a hundred people are watching, a thousand people are watching? 10,000? 100,000? It doesn't change the way I'm going to act."
"I remember the first time a camera was on me," continued Conrod. "I was so nervous. I was a completely different person. I couldn't even talk right. But as time went on, I got comfortable with it. The biggest advice for kids wanting to be streamers is that it's about being able to entertain people, make people laugh, and make people have fun."